My doctoral inquiry started around 2013: What was really going on with these kids? How could they be so troubled and so smart at the same time? Yes, I could diagnose them with all sorts of disorders and try to help them reduce their symptoms, just like the therapists before me had attempted to do. Or maybe we were missing something about a specific type of child. I started studying the research literature in hopes of finding clues about what we might be missing.

By 2018, I felt I was starting to understand my troubled clients as I was finding theories and research findings scattered across various academic fields that described their personalities. I now needed a research framework to bring it all together, so in 2020, I started a doctorate program in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. I decided to engage in this project because I felt that children who suffered the most were misunderstood, and that we, as a society, did not know how to meet their needs.